Spare Change

On Sunday I had a wonderful opportunity to have dinner with a nurse bound for Rwanda. We were introduced to each other via email by the founder of Vista Ministries whom we had both worked with in other missions contexts. We had been emailing one another since Feb. while I was in Mexico City. We are hoping to develop some type of working relationship between Kibogora Hospital in Rwanda and the school of nursing here at Northwest.
We had a good time sharing stories, thoughts, hopes, dreams, and visions for the future. When we ended our visit the last thing she said to me was, "I hope the next time I see you will be in the Kigali airport."
That night I went home and dumped out my infamous coffee can which I put all my spare change into at the end of the week. The coffee can has historically been my "missions trip fund." I started to count how much I had saved up and soon found out that it wasn't near enough for an international plane ticket. It's going to take a long time to save up that much spare change.
I thought more about my new friend and how exciting but scarey it must be for her to leave her home and her family and her church to go to place that is so much different from the place we call home. I must say, that takes a lot more than spare change; that even takes more than an arm and leg, it takes your entire self.
I have to ask myself, am I giving the future God has for me just the change left in my pocket at the end of the day or am I giving Him the person that wears the pocketed garment? Am I living a "spare change" life or "fully invested" life? That's something to think about...